The concept of development and (mis)use of a metaphor: from the white man’s burden to the goal of sustainable development

Abstract

The paper examines the concept of development as a neologism, a nonempirical and unstable preconception and traces the beginnings of the contemporary understanding of development starting with the process of transfer from the domain of biology into the social sphere. Through the transformation of the metaphor into an independent signifier in the domain of social sciences to the transitivity of the concept attained under the influence of Enlightenment, ’development’ in the XX century acquires proportions of a myth and a religious quality. The myth of development, as closely connected to the discursive construction of international community, modernity and inevitability of progress, is defined by its purpose, not its content: it legitimizes hierarchy and intervention. Although reduced to an oxymoron ’sustainable development’, deprived of meaning, it perseveres as ideologically useful and adaptable from one context to the next.